Accredited online and on-campus courses from leading Australian universities, TAFEs and colleges
About Fashion Designing
You'll become
Average Salaries
Fashion Designing workers may earn between $39,000 and $88,000 per year
You’re a creative thinker who seeks the world differently. Now, turn your talent into an exciting new career in fashion by studying a fashion designing course.
Prepare yourself with the key skills and creative abilities needed to succeed in the competitive and exciting world of fashion design by studying a fashion designing course.
A small but growing industry in Australia, the fashion design sector has enormous potential to grow and develop, with stronger connections than ever to international markets and the dynamism to capitalise on emerging technology. By studying a fashion designing course, you’ll build the essential practical skills, foundational knowledge and personal abilities to stand out and succeed in a competitive and rewarding environment.
Practical and creative, a fashion designing course will teach you how to design, develop and realise fashion products, from research initial designs to finalising your finished product. Your learning will be grounded in a comprehensive understanding of the modern commercial fashion marketplace, and will help you build the skills required to take advantage of technology, trends and consumer habits.
By completing a fashion designing course, you’ll learn how to turn your natural curiosity and creativity into an enriching career in the design industries. Exciting, unexpected and dynamic, a career as a fashion designer is a unique opportunity to develop and share your artistic vision and shape your skills into an emerging commercial awareness.
You may study a fashion designing course as certificate or diploma course, a bachelor’s or master’s degree, or as a graduate certificate or post-graduate diploma course.
After completing your course, you may choose to seek employment working as a fashion designer in a company or production house, or start your own fashion label or brand, using your creativity, canny and critical thinking skills to produce beautiful and thought-provoking items that engage and excite people.
What do fashion designing graduates do?
As a fashion designer, you’ll be responsible for planning, designing and documents garments, products and patterns for production.
As a fashion designer, you can expect to perform tasks like:
- Consulting with clients and stakeholders, to determine the objectives and constraints of a design brief;
- Researching and analysing brief requirements and selecting appropriate design medium, fabrics and tools;
- Reviewing references and researching creative elements;
- Producing sketches, illustrations and diagrams to communicate design concepts;
- Providing informed advice on use of fabrics, shape, cut, colour, patterns and trends in fashion design to clients and stakeholders;
- Detailing and documenting a selected design for production;
- Supervising or carrying out the production of the design, including selecting and specifying materials;
- Preparing and commissioning prototypes and samples;
- Supervising the production and preparation of designs; and
- Managing the execution of fashion design projects, including managing and briefing staff and managing budgets and other resources.
You may also be responsible for managing accounts and invoicing, marketing your services and seeking new clients, and connecting clients with other creative professionals, such as photographers, designers and stylists, depending on the nature of your work.
Career Outcomes
Career Outcomes
After completing a fashion designing course, you’ll likely seek employment as a fashion designer, product designer, or pattern designer or cutter, working for a clothing brand, production company or in another role in the garment industry.
You'll be qualified to work in other roles in creative fields, including working as a:
- Web Designer
- Graphic Designer
- Interior Designer
- Web Developer
- Game Designer
- Animator
- Illustrator
- Art Director
- Interaction Designer
- Conceptual Artist
- Game Concept Artist
- Game Evaluator
- Educational Game Designer
- Game Level Designer
- Game Researcher
- Interface Designer
- Digital Media Manager
- 2D and 3D Animator
- Visual Effects Artist
- Visual Effects Supervisor
- Motion Graphics Artist
- 3D Model Builder
- Retail Spatial Designer
- Display and Event Designer
- Social Designer
- Spatial Designer
- Human Centred Designer
- Design Strategist
- UX (User Experience) Designer
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Is fashion designing right for you?
You’ll thrive working in the fashion design industry if you:
- Are creative
- Can express yourself well
- Have strong communication and interpersonal skills
- Have strong research skills
- Are resilient
- Are curious about the world
- Can work independently
- Are proactive and enterprising
- Enjoy detailed work
- Have excellent organisational and project management skills
- Enjoy problem-solving and testing
- Work well with people
- Are patient and empathetic
- Have big ideas
- Enjoy practical work
Job opportunities
The Australian Government’s Job Outlook reports that the while the fashion design industry in Australia is small, it has grown over the past decade and job opportunities in the sector are expected to continue expanding until at least 2020.
Currently employing approximately 11,600 people, the industry is expected to grow strongly until at least 2020, where it will employ approximately 13,300 people.
The majority of jobs in the fashion design industry in Australia are available in Victoria. Job Outlook reports that approximately 39 per cent of all fashion designing jobs in Australia are available in Victoria, and approximately 37 per cent of jobs are available in New South Wales. Very few jobs in fashion design are available in the Northern Territory, the Australian Capital Territory, Western Australia and Tasmania.
Average Salaries
PayScale reports that fashion designers can expect to earn a salary between $39,000 and $88,000 per year, with an average annual salary of approximately $61,000 per year. While entry-level fashion designers can expect to earn a competitive salary of approximately $50,00 per year in the first years of their career, a strong, positive relationship between experience and earning capacity exists in the industry, with designers with 20 years or more of experience earning on average approximately $88,000 per year.
PayScale notes that approximately one in four fashion designers has more than 15 years of professional experience, indicating that people remain working in this field for the duration of the careers.